1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to controlling access to resources and more particularly to controlling access to resources using a proxy.
2. Description of Related Art
Many modern companies, organizations, or other entities are geographically decentralized, having subsidiaries, affiliates, operating units, offices, or other entities located in widely separated geographic areas. In some cases, each individual entity maintains and controls access its own resources, for example data, web development tools, and media files, making sharing and controlling access to those resources by other entities complicated. In practice, this often results in minimal sharing of resources due to access security constraints.
In other instances, a parent company can attempt to centrally control all shared resources. This can work well for organizations that impose a rigid hierarchical structure, but can require huge costs and efforts to establish and maintain centralized control over the shared resources. In practice, many resources may not be made available via the centrally controlled sharing mechanism due to cost and maintenance requirements, again resulting in minimal sharing of resources. Furthermore, different users associated with the individual entities may have individual needs that lead to an unwieldy proliferation of resource management tools.